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To me, its totally not fair on the players.. Because the rules of the games were made such a way that it allows it to happen.. I dun see clubs getting DQ for playing a weaker team when they have qualified... So I can totally understand what the 8 players were thinking... BWF is just trying to cover up for their mistakes and the opposition of other players

Yeah BWF what were you thinking? Can't treat these players like adults, or expect them to be professional. Bad, bad BWF! Bad boy.

When we say playing a game, it consists of physical aspect as well as strategy aspect. The system of rule for this olympics games for badminton reward players who lose the game in order to advance. Therefore it encourage players to use strategy to lose the games in order to advance easier. The goal for them to lose the game is still to achieve higher level rather than just to throw the games negatively. I think the audience also over reacted. If they want to watch exciting games in the Semifinal and Final, they should expect players reserved their best for the later stage. None of the swimmers in the games swim in full strength in the heats. They reserved their energy. They can't just disqualify players because they are saving energy for the later more important matches.

Personally I think BWF didn't make a wise decision. The decision was so rush and was made without thinking of consequences. If BWF want to punish somebody, I think that they should start from BWF itself rather than to remove the top players from games. That decision certainly hurt the sport in Olympics. They removed two of top 4 pairs from the games and replace them with the pairs at the bottom of the groups. The level of the games at semifinal and final will drop significantly. What they present to the world at this year women double Final will be much lower standard. They are many alternative ways to deals with this. For example, they can fine the players or even the association for this "inappropriate" attitude towards the games rather than just bluntly disqualify them. Those players took years to pepare for this games. It is certainly very unfair to pay such a high price for faulty rule system.

Originally Posted by Jasonvan

I am in North America here, I've heard of this over a sports radio station here in Vancouver and the hosts said while it is not good sportsmanship, however the rules were in place for this to happen and it's completely within the rules at the time for them to lose and get a more favorable draw in the knockout rounds. They said that why would the #1 seed want to play the #2 seed who are their comrades when it can be avoided within the context of the rules here. Isn't the goal here to get the medal, and by doing what they did, they are trying to give their country the best result which would be a gold and silver. Teams lose all the time to get better draft postions in professional sports, are they ever penalized, the answer is no. A few years ago, the Indianopolis Colts was on the verge of a perfect season in the NFL, all they need was win their final home game and what did they do? The coach decided it was a meaningless game with the playoffs coming and they sat all their star players and lost that game and a chance at history. Actually it seems in terms of acceptance of what happened, alot of people here in the western culture seem ok with this. Just my 2 cents....

When we say playing a game, it consists of physical aspect as well as strategy aspect. The system of rule for this olympics games for badminton reward players who lost the game in order to advance. Therefore it encourage players to use strategy to lose the games in order to advance easier. The goal for them to lose the game is still to achieve higher level rather than just to throw the games negatively. I think the Audience also over reacted. If they want to watch exciting games in the Semifinal and Final, they should expect players reserved their best for the later stage. None of the swimmers in the games swim in full strength in the heats. They reserved their energy. They can't just disqualify players because they are saving energy for the later more important matches.

Personally I think BWF didn't make a wise decision. The decision was so rush and was made without thinking of consequences. If BWF want to punish somebody, I think that they should start from BWF itself rather than to remove the top players from games. That decision certainly hurt the sport in Olympics. They removed two of top 4 pairs from the games and replace them with the pairs at the bottom of the groups. The level of the games at semifinal and final will drop significantly. What they presented to the world at this year women double Final will be much lower standard. They are many alternative ways to deals with this. For example, they can fine the players or even the association for this "inappropriate" attitude towards the games.

I wonder why BWF take it so seriously.

this time the 8 girls took it too far... serve into the net, return 2-3 feet out with the max rally last 4shots... its like robbery in front of the police station... they force the police to act.

When we say playing a game, it consists of physical aspect as well as strategy aspect. The system of rule for this olympics games for badminton reward players who lose the game in order to advance. Therefore it encourage players to use strategy to lose the games in order to advance easier. The goal for them to lose the game is still to achieve higher level rather than just to throw the games negatively. I think the audience also over reacted. If they want to watch exciting games in the Semifinal and Final, they should expect players reserved their best for the later stage. None of the swimmers in the games swim in full strength in the heats. They reserved their energy. They can't just disqualify players because they are saving energy for the later more important matches.

Personally I think BWF didn't make a wise decision. The decision was so rush and was made without thinking of consequences. If BWF want to punish somebody, I think that they should start from BWF itself rather than to remove the top players from games. That decision certainly hurt the sport in Olympics. They removed two of top 4 pairs from the games and replace them with the pairs at the bottom of the groups. The level of the games at semifinal and final will drop significantly. What they presented to the world at this year women double Final will be much lower standard. They are many alternative ways to deals with this. For example, they can fine the players or even the association for this "inappropriate" attitude towards the games.

I wonder why BWF take it so seriously.

Agree totally with you here, a hefty fine to the teams in question probably would've been better. This is basically a knee jerk reaction by them just to save face. And also agree with what you said about fans over-reacting, just like in professional sports leagues, if a team's already qualified for post season and decided to field a farm team or lesser team for the final game or games, the fans probably will not boo their home team because they understand it is meaningless and there's post season hopes for that team.

Personally think it's very very stupid for the olympics to go with the round robin format in the first place...

i'm not agree with you. i think that it is a great idea for the player that are not well classified. Imagine. you make australia -> london just to play one match and be beaten against the world number 1. Like this you can play more matches and make more experience. Badminton is not only for the 3 or 4 top ranked players. I think it's a very good idea for our sport. We can't trash this out because the usual chinese cheaters made another stroke.

Remember in 2004 with Zhou MI. She declared that she changed country because she was told to lose in the semis. BFW should have act after that declaration. They should have the courage to say: We remove the 2004 medal to zhang ning because of cheatering. Remember the AE final with Lin dan and chen jin. THey should have not allow Chen Jin to participate to the olympics. And what about the MS semi single in the 2008 OJ and all the walkover in 2011 and 2012.... The fact is that they keep their eye's closed because badminton is not a major sport in the world. But this time, it was at the olympics and all the press from all the countries speaks about that. They had no other choice to do disqualified them. If it had happened in Super series or world championship, they would have say nothing i think.

Another problem is that the schedules were made badly. Why the matches that had connections weren't played in the same time to avoid some people to calculate ?

Also another problem is that the best players plays against with each others at the last match. If the chinese an korean had meet in the first match, there wouldn't have been problems.For example in the european football championship, italy and spain who were the favorite of the group played the first match togetherů.

1. DQing players doesn't resolve the problem when there is incentive to lose because of the setup.
2. it also denies fans of good matchups later in the tournament
3. i know i rather watch better badminton players at olympics. (I am stuck with WD bronze match if anyone wants that. Russia-Canada is not much better than club MD)
4. another example is korea throwing their group game at thomas cup by playing MD players in MS and vice versa. Do you DQ the whole team?
5. An alternative punishment is a heavy ($1+ million) fine because players are incentivised by money, which olympic medals would bring through bonuses and sponsorships.
6. fines against the federation and coaches would also highlight the systematic unsportsmanlike conduct is not the preserve of players, but shared by coaches and federations who will now get away scot-free.

Blame?

I think the players are the victims here. I mean who should Wang/Yu be afraid of? Noone! they are by far the best pair in the world. That directs the spotlight directly back to the team manager, the famous and arrogant Li Yongbo. It shoul be him leaving the sport, not Yang.Next the BWF should blame them selves, for being so foolish to introduce a system of play that they themselves rejected in 2008 after Korea threw the team match against England in Thomas Cup to avoid meeting China. It's not suitable to wipe it all off on some 8 random players.Also BWF should blame themselves for not doing anything serious to chinese and korean match throwing for a decade. That has taken away creditbility that BWF will punish unsportsmanlike behaviour!

I'm not so sure fines will work. We are not talking about amateur players here. Many of the top players make a good living from badminton. They're backed by endorsements, government funded programs. Deep pockets. If you fine them, the organizations will just pay up and chalk it up to 'cost of doing business'.
Fines would hurt the majority of the 'other' players, who devote a lot of time and personal financial resources just to get to London. Many participating are amassing huge debt to represent their country, but do so for the love of the sport.
The most effective method of curtailing this kind of behavior is to withdraw their ability to participate in the Olympics. This should be effective towards players, coaches, national organizations and sports governing bodies.
If this kind of behavior is allowed to continue at the top level, then people will take this as an acceptable practice and will implement this strategy in regional tournaments, club tournaments and school tournaments. Would we feel proud doing this for our kids in a elementary school tournament? Shame!

1. sponsorship will naturally decrease for fined athletes. what business want to be associated with unsportsmanlike players?
2. national badminton associations also fight for funding with other sports, and will not risk unnecessary penalties especially as funding is more likely to be cut than increased for this bad advertisement for national image
3. fines are unlikely to be incurred by poorer players as they are not in position to throw games.

I kinda feel sorry for BWF. They are like a ground down teacher with little self respect left because their class just constantly takes the p**s out of them. Some associations just won't behave themselves, it's embarrassing. BWF should have found someone big enough to put them in their place a long time ago.

This is a result of China's drive to get as many medals as possible. The coach has likely been instructed by their Chinese Olympic committee or what-have-you to acquire as many medals as possible no matter what. China was being greedy trying to get both Gold and Silver for the Womens doubles event.

I also think BWF is partly to blame for creating this system, it simply doesn't work because you have some countries that have multiple teams in the Womens doubles event.

This is definately not the players fault, they have no choice but to comply with their coaches demand. If it was another country, it would probably be ok to disobey your coach, but them being from China, they simply don't have that freedom like most players have.